Punching above their weight

Worth their weight in gold for packaging technicians and designers, the inherently strong characteristics of foils and films provide superb tools to help market and protect valuable and vulnerable goods. By delivering an astounding range of finishes and functions, the thinnest foils and films are truly heavyweights in their packaging roles.

Multi-sensory surface impact and consideration for the environment can go hand in hand in luxury packaging thanks to the latest developments in film and foil-based media. This is good news for producers of high end products and discerning final users: it frees them to do business and live with a clearer conscience as far as the environment is concerned.

Eco-friendly alternatives by API Group open the door to holographic and lens effects on laminated cartonboard aimed at secondary packaging in the cosmetics sector. The results are a far cry from the ‘return to basics’ and rough-hewn ‘designer’ packaging substrates that exude ‘green chic’.

In API’s PortaBio, the raw material for the base cartonboard is Forest Stewardship Council certified wood and the laminate finish is biodegradable. This produces a completely compostable final product, says the company.

The laminate is a cellulosic biopolymer film which biodegrades when consumed by microbes, explains API Laminates’ product development manager David Williamson.

The process of adding holographic effects involves embossing a pattern into a proprietary thin, thermoplastic coating that is applied to a carrier film. It requires no inks or printing. Marketed under the name HoloGreen, the combination of the base substrate PortaBio and holographic finish is due on the market late 2010.

Another API development, LensBio creates a ‘lens’ effect using holography with PortaBio material as the base substrate. This also will be offered to customers later in the year.

Packaging can bear an FSC logo when the base cartonboard material and printer/converter are certified under the FSC management system.

Converting Today visited the processing and packaging event ProSweets Cologne in February to find Swedish supplier A&R displaying a complex pack that unfolded like a ‘flaming flower’, which is fully recyclable thanks to PortaBio’s collaboration with paper and board partners Kösnas and Stora Enso.

Foil technology

A look at how to produce stunning finished effects economically leads to modern embossing and stamping technology, which ensures efficient further processing.

Relief embossing can emphasise and highlight selected elements using visual and haptic, or tactile, effects.

Hot stamping foil decorative effects catch the eye, give a product ‘pick me up’ appeal and have ‘play value’, to help push up sales, according to UK company Foilco. The ‘beacon effect’ is used to advantage in fast moving goods such as toothpastes, detergents, pet food, CDs and DVDs, perfumes, and even baked beans.

Machinery maker manroland argues that traditional foiling has been a costly and labour intensive process: the established hotfoil embossing method requires specialist equipment and expertise and cannot be done inline ‘on-press’.

Manroland has introduced the Inline Foiler Prindor system, which brings the coldfoil process inline with regular printing and up to normal production speeds, ‘dramatically’ reducing the potential costs. It also shortens the time taken to achieve a high-impact effect. The company further states that the finished effect is more durable than hot foil embossed and can be applied in more intricate detail to small or large areas.

Hotfoil embossing will achieve metallic effects in a variety of designs and ‘industrial perfection’, while cold foiling offers ‘unlimited’ metal effects, says RLC Packaging, a Germany company specialising in surface effects technology.

RLC confirms that metal effects via coldfoil transfer technology add no tooling costs to print any brilliant metallic colour, including filigree applications. Its Liquid Metal system is one such example, which allows inline finishing by flexo and offset printing.

The nano effect

Micro embossing for eye-catching 3D effects is executed using lens and hologram processes. An in-register design on a foil-laminated board is overprinted through a UV process for perfect registration across the whole finishing process.

RLC Laser Gloss technology creates diffractive surfaces to produce high-gloss holographic finishes using UV coatings and a speciality film. The film has a nano-embossed holographic pattern. When the UV coating is applied, the film that lies over the top of the sheet before the coating is UV-dried and the film is drawn off again, leaving behind a holographic effect on the sheet.

Laser Gloss is marketed as a more environmental decorative process because there is no actual transfer of a foil or material onto the substrate. The film can be reused several times before new film is needed, avoiding added costs and reducing the carbon footprint. The use of ultraviolet inks and coatings avoids harmful VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and makes packs easy to recycle, says RLC.

Because it both lures a shopper and deters the counterfeiter, Laser Gloss is ‘the future of surface printing’, believes RLC.

Tamper-evidence

Hueck Folien, the German converter of foils and films for the healthcare and food sectors, has product security in mind with its offerings for tamper evident labels. A plain, metallised foil and a holographic embossed silver security foil both have a totally invisible hidden ‘VOID’ message which becomes visible if the label is tampered with.

A third development is a label film with a hologram that is invisible until tampered with. An additional security feature in all three products is a dry-peel coating, which fully covers the adhesive, making it impossible to replace the label.

More recently, US based Constantia Hueck Foils introduced a foil for tamper evident caps and lidding ‘to protect the contents and seal in the freshness for bottles, cups and other food, beverage and dairy product containers’.

The high-slip, low friction texture of Constantia Hueck’s new foil is said to reduce the need for air pressure in the packaging machinery chute, which significantly cuts down dust residue and build-up. The end result is fewer equipment jams and less downtime due to cleaning and maintenance, says the company.

The new foil, which comes in printed and unprinted versions and in retort applications, is said to require a lower seal temperature and less dwell time. It also offers ‘easy peel’ to be user-friendly and no leaks for consistent quality.

Constantia Hueck also produces push-through and peelable blister foils; cold-formable foils for absolute barrier to moisture and oxygen; heat-seal coatings for PVC, PVdC, PET and PP; two-sided registered printing for compliance-style packaging; white lacquered foils suitable for text and barcode printing; and other child-resistant, senior friendly and anti-counterfeiting structures.

Eco-plastics for food packaging

A French consortium has been working to develop film applications for food packaging from plant origins such as cereal crops. Toray Films Europe is one of seven partners focused on eco-plastics and part of the DIFEX-Bio (Industrial Demonstration for Extruded Biopolymer Products) project.

DIFEX-Bio has drawn together expertise from the plastics and agricultural sectors to create new polymers for films for bags and lidding. The aim is to enter a fast growing market with an estimated volume of around 12,000 tonne/year.

The technical objective is a new compound based on biopolymer and cereal flour supplied by Limagrain Céréales Ingredients, a major player in the biopolymers field, explains Toray.

Research has concentrated on a process that excludes GMO (genetically modified organism) ingredients and solvents; a formula that gives a liquid or liquid blend based on cereal flour; a compostable biopolymer with the required optical (transparency) and mechanical (elongation) properties; and suitable for bi-orientation, extrusion and thermoforming.

The compound must also meet the food packaging sector’s needs in printability, sealability and barrier properties.

Toray Films Europe believes it brings to the project ‘cutting-edge skills and the means necessary for developing conversion processes, technical know-how and the ability to supply the R&D pilot tools enabling testing under industrial conditions’.

Toray triumphantT

Two of Toray’s customers won Prestige Pro Hélio honours in 2009 for the best packaging and products using rotogravure. The French association Pro Hélio Photo-Engraving runs ‘the only European competition award that recognises the quality of printed rotogravure’.

Company: Vitrocelle Nouvelle, of Uni-Packaging group

Brand: Grant Classic Oak Smoked Scottish Salmon

Category: Reverse printing on clear film laminated with clear film,

Film: Lumirror 22.00/12

Company: Roland Emballages – Altea Packaging group

Brand: Intermarché coffee capsules for Netto

Category: Reverse printing on clear film laminated with opaque film or paper

Film: Lumirror 10.31/12 and Claryl M/12

Toray also reports that a new line for Torayfan has ramped up production in the USA of the clear barrier OPP CB-P and CB-S films for baked snacks and confectionery. The plant has gained the AIB (American Institute of Baking) certification needed for the production of food contact materials.

Inline cold foiling is durable and can be applied in intricate detail to small or large areas. Foil RLC’s Liquid Metal system allows inline finishing by flexo and offset printing with no expensive set-up costs. RLC 1 RLC Laser Gloss: a ‘more environmental decorative process’. RLC 2 Winner for Vitrocelle Nouvelle. Vitrocelle Winner for Roland Emballages. Roland

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API
RLC Packaging
Foilco
Hueck Folien
Toray Films Europe
Vitrocelle Nouvelle
Roland Emballages